A bear has been filmed gobbling up a family of ducks at a zoo as children watch in horror.
The brown bear named Juniper, who is kept at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, Washington, was filmed eyeing up the family of ducklings before jumping into the pool.
It just so happened that at the same time, she had an audience of children watching her feast. In the video, spectators can be heard pleading with the bear to call off the hunt.
“Uh oh,” says one as the bear fixes her eyes on the ducks. Then, as the bear enters the water, one zoo visitor taps on the glass, trying to distract the bear.
Rachelle via Storyful
Juniper swims toward the ducklings and catches one, quickly eating it up. The bear then catches another, and feasts on it right near the window where children are watching.
The video was originally posted on April 23 to TikTok by user Rachelle, who had attended the zoo for her daughter’s birthday.
“A Nat Geo train wreck for my daughter’s birthday, thanks Juniper!” she wrote in the TikTok caption.
Rachelle told Storyful that at first, the group had been “excited to see the bears being so active.” That was until they noticed “Juniper had a snack in her sight.”
Despite the stressed children, Rachelle said it was cool to see animals “doing their thing,” Storyful reported. Luckily, the children were not traumatized, she told the media channel.
Juniper came to the Woodland park zoo as an orphan, after she was found wandering Anchorage, Alaska, on her own.
And this is not actually the first time this has happened at the Woodland park zoo. Another video from 2023 shows a bear guzzling down ducklings in what appears to be the same enclosure.
As the bear chomps on a duckling, children scream loudly in horror. It is not certain whether this was also Juniper.
It is not unusual for bears to feast on this sort of prey.
Brown bears are omnivorous meaning they eat a wide variety of plants as well as meat. The species have very long, strong claws which makes it adept at bringing down large prey, but they are also opportunistic hunters. This means they are always in search of an easy meal. Ducklings are the ideal prey for these species, as they are vulnerable and easy to catch.
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Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.